ISO 55000: Leadership and Commitment

The ISO 55000 standard spells out the need for an asset management system that maximizes asset value contribution to organizational goals. To achieve this we begin with clause 4, organizational context. This includes consideration of the organization's goals as well as input from stakeholders – internal and external.

The clause 4 inputs drive the activity of the leaders, defined in clause 5. Clause 5 describes three requirements of leadership.

This is classic change management best practice. A structured change management process will be a significant contributor to demonstrating the required behavior. Create communications, sponsorship, management, resistance and training plans with tasks that require the defined behaviors. This is the leadership behavior.

2 – “establish an asset management policy” (5.2)

Now we focus on the vision. What are our guiding principles? What criteria do we use when making asset management decisions? How do we consider stakeholder needs and requirements? This is similar to what we call the change definition in the change management world. It defines what we are going to do differently and how it impacts our people, processes, and tools.

3 – “responsibilities and authorities for relevant roles are assigned and communicated” (5.3)

In any culture change the two most significant influencers of success are sponsorship and managers. It is crucial that senior leadership clearly define management responsibility for execution. This can be achieved through a published organization chart and job descriptions.

With sound ground work on the previously defined organizational goals and assessment of stakeholder needs, leadership should be able to work with an ISO 55000 savvy facilitator to create these artifacts in a single session. But that is just the beginning. The real work is making sure that this becomes a priority in communications, performance expectations, and compensation.